XI Olimpiada, la fiesta de las naciones

Leni Riefenstahl started something that we all take for granted nowadays when we watch sports.From the following camera in the 100 meters to slow motion action to the build up of tension(start with lesser athletes and end with the winning performance).All this is combined with some beautiful shooting of both the athletes as of the crowd together with the impressive Berlin Olympic Stadium.

OLYMPIA is not a propaganda movie like Riefenstahl's magnum opus TRIUMPH DES WILLENS but it still shows hitler and his gang plus the swastika flag several times(but hey,why is the waving swastika flag propaganda and the waving stars and stripes in SAVING PRIVATE RYAN just a flag).Anyway,it isn't so much about the nazi's,it's about the Olympics and Riefenstahl gives us a journalistic report of it.

Highlight to me(and probably to everybody)is the winning performance of Jesse Owens,one of the greatest athletes of the 20th century.

The second part of the documentary is the lesser of the two with too much emphasis on the diving,but it has got a comic sequence with the Militry.

A good documentary with high historical interest,but I would rather recommend TRIUMPH DES WILLENS.It is more shocking but it gives a better view of the nazi's. 7/10

I first viewed this film at the Museum of Modern Art 35 years ago;I now own it and the years have only added to my astonishment of what a genius Leni is. She took film to a new and higher art form. The Nazi noise does get in the way, but the epic scope and feel of the finished product make it worth viewing. And yes, part one is far superior, but part two is certainly a work of art also. It is a masterpiece. Would that she had done more. She is a most fascinating artist.

something like 50 cameramen. 18 months of editing. they invented the underwater camera FOR THIS DOCUMENTARY. it is a beautiful and amazing achievement. the fact that Leni managed to make a live event look like something staged, planned, rehearsed- simply amazing.

I've read that this film, which portrays human beauty and athletic success, serves to justify euthanasia of the weak and infirm. If so, does not Da Vinci's David do the same?

My belief is that without the historical context, there would not be a single viewer who would suggest that this is propaganda fostered to support the atrocities of the Nazi Regime. As another reviewer suggests: this is no better than an NFL highlight film.

Actually, this is better than an NFL highlight film. Highlight films focus only on isolated moments of peak action. Do most of us prefer to just see the winning basket or the last touchdown? It's the game, the show, the story which gives us pleasure - not just the ending or spectacular feat.

The beauty of this film and its companion lies in its crafting. The lighting, the camera angles, the sequencing, the pace - everything is blended to produce a thing of beauty. It's like the chef who creates a feast with the same ingredients we manage to render a barely palatable meal. Leni produces a feast - a beautiful feast!

This is a brilliant sports documentary - the experimentation with camera angles was revolutionary at the time and the pole vault sequence at night is one of my favourite sequences in a film ever. The athletes are portrayed as superhuman, so in this sense the film is elitist and Nietzschean, but this is certainly not a racist film, politics does not play an explicit role, although one could argue that the deification of athletes (they are shown in close-up, alone, to contrast with the watching masses) promotes the idea that some men are greater than others. A fascinating film, and a definite progression from the standard documentary format of Das Triumph des Willens.